Captain of the Guard: On the Nature of Princesses

Princesses were by their nature complicated, perversely because, despite all the layers covering it up, their role was quite simple: to get married and have children. Other women, of lower station were expected to do the same thing, but that wasn’t all they had to do. A farmer’s wife worked the farm, cooked the meals, raised the children, often gave them the rudimentary education they were going to get which included social graces and morals. An innkeeper’s wife worked along side of her husband.

A princess didn’t educate her child, that’s what the tutor’s did. She didn’t raise them, that’s what the wet nurse and nannies were for. She didn’t cook, or clean, or work the way every other woman had to, just to survive.

This created an unsettling undercurrent to the life of a princess, for despite the privilege, despite tacit authority and power over others something was missing and filing that idleness with needlework, fashion, shopping, pets, hunting, gossip, dances and wicked power plays wasn’t ever enough.

It should be noted that there have been women that have ruled as Queen, or Empress at various times in history. With kings you can get all sorts, with queens and empresses you tend to get two, both of which are remembered in history. They are either exceptional, or exceptionally cruel and ruthless.

Sometimes both.

There were a lot of reasons for this, but the main one was that any prince could fall up as it were into the position of king (holding that position, let alone living long enough to keep it was another matter) while a Queen that was more than a figure head, more than the wife of the king, but the actual ruler had get there with a combination of ability, manipulation, ruthlessness, luck and sheer force of will.

However, for the most part this does not occur, and the main function of princesses is to be exchanged and traded to cement alliances and produce children. To make the matter worse, because of her status, all but a few men were beneath her and not worthy of her interest, let alone her favors because of it. Those few men that were of sufficient social rank to be her equal, were quite often rat faced, perfumed dandies, or simple-minded buffoons. Inbreeding will do that with any animal, and royals were a peculiar breed to begin with.

All this made princesses uniquely susceptible to someone like Ro. Men like Ro stood outside the normal social hierarchy and seemed oblivious to it. That seeming obliviousness was part of the appeal of him, even though if one considered it carefully, it was quite clear that men like Ro, and Ro in particular, were very conscious of social status. He didn’t run around wooing peasant girls (which is not to be confused with whoring around which he did engage in) or rescuing heavy-set matrons.

Pointing any of this out, would result in vehement denials from any princess ever confronted with the truth.

Never underestimate the power of self-delusion in a royal.